ONGC, GAIL seek stake in Indian petrochemical project

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and GAIL have approached Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) for picking up stake in Rs 5,000-crore ($10 billion) petrochemicals project which is being set up at Kochi in Kerala. “We have received written proposal from several companies to join the project and ONGC and GAIL are among them,” said R K Singh, Chairman, BPCL. The petrochemicals project is set up by BPCL and LG Chemicals. LG hold a majority stake with 51 per cent where as BPCL 49 per cent.

“We haven’t decided yet on taking more partners. The equity structure of the petrochemical joint venture has not yet been finalized. But it has been more or less agreed that LG will be the lead partner,” said Singh. The project will be built along with the Rs 14,500 crore ($29 billion) expansion of the Kochi refinery from 9.5 million tonne to 15.5 million tonne by 2015-16. As part of this project, BPCL would be establishing a petrochemical fluid catalytic cracker to generate 500 metric tonne per annum of propylene.

According to Shing, the petrochemicals project will be completed by December 2015, and commissioned by March 2016. It will produce high-value products like acrylic acid (which is currently not produced in India) and super absorbent polymers that are used in manufacturing of diapers. It would manufacture oxoalcohol that is a feed stock in manufacturing of paints and certain cosmetics.

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